Jessica Taylor

Jessica Taylor is the lead digital political reporter for NPR. Based in Washington, D.C., she covers the 2016 elections and national politics for NPR digital.

Before joining NPR in May 2015, Taylor was the campaign editor for The Hill newspaper where she oversaw the newspaper's 2014 midterm coverage, managed a team of political reporters and wrote her own biweekly column.

Prior to The Hill, Taylor was a writer and producer for MSNBC's "The Daily Rundown with Chuck Todd" and a contributor to the NBC News Political Unit. She covered and reported on the 2012 election as a senior analyst for The Rothenberg Gonzales Political Report. Her quotes have appeared in TheNew York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today, as well as several state and regional newspapers across the country. Taylor has also appeared on MSNBC, Fox News, C-SPAN, CNN and other local network affiliates.

On Election Night 2012, Jessica served as an off-air analyst for CBS News in New York, advising producers and reporters on House and Senate races.

Previously, Jessica was editor of National Journal's "House Race Hotline" and Assistant Editor for POLITICO during the 2010 midterms. She began her career in Washington as the research director for The Almanac of American Politics.

A native of Elizabethton, Tenn., she is a graduate of Furman University in Greenville, S.C. and now lives in Alexandria, Va.

Democratic finger-pointing has begun after the party's loss in Tuesday's closely watched special election in Georgia, and for some members, the blame partly belongs to their House minority leader, Nancy Pelosi.

Republican Karen Handel has won the costly and closely watched special congressional election in Georgia's 6th District, a blow to Democratic hopes of pulling off an upset in a district that President Trump only narrowly carried last year.

The former Georgia secretary of state won by almost 4 points, beating Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former congressional staffer — 51.9 percent to 48.1 percent.

The violence that struck a ballfield in Alexandria, Va., on Wednesday abruptly plunged what had been a routine start to the day in the Del Ray neighborhood into chaos. Residents were focused on morning workouts and getting coffee; a congressional contingent had driven over for an early baseball practice. But then the shooting started, and they all scrambled for cover.

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie just barely survived the Virginia GOP primary for governor Tuesday night in a shockingly tight contest, and will now face off against Democratic Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam in the key November contest.

Northam easily defeated former U.S. Rep. Tom Perriello in the more closely watched Democratic contest by nearly 12 points, which pitted the progressive Perriello against the establishment Northam.

Former FBI Director James Comey told the Senate Intelligence Committee that he believed he was fired by President Trump over the growing Russia investigation and that other arguments by the White House were "lies, plain and simple."

Former FBI Director James Comey will testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee on Thursday that President Trump did ask him for "loyalty" at a January dinner and later told him alone in the Oval Office that he "hope[d] you can let" the investigation into former national security director Michael Flynn "go."

Former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton argued Wednesday that Russian meddling in the 2016 election in large part cost her the White House, and said she was "leaning" toward believing that President Trump's campaign did, indeed, collude with the Russians.

Polls have closed in the closely watched Montana special election. The race was upended in the final hours following an altercation between the Republican congressional candidate, Greg Gianforte, and a reporter, adding even more uncertainty to an unusually tight contest.

President Trump asked two top U.S. intelligence chiefs to push back against the FBI's investigation into possible collusion between Russia and his presidential campaign, the Washington Post reported Monday evening.

Former FBI Director James Comey has agreed to testify before the Senate Intelligence Committee in an open session.

"The Committee looks forward to receiving testimony from the former Director on his role in the development of the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 US elections, and I am hopeful that he will clarify for the American people recent events that have been broadly reported in the media," Intelligence Committee Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., said in a statement released Friday evening.

President Trump told Russian officials last week that he had fired the "nut job" FBI Director James Comey to ease the pressure of the mounting investigation into his campaign's ties to Russia, according to a report from The New York Times.

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein told members of Congress that he knew President Trump planned to fire FBI Director James Comey before he wrote a memo that the White House has cited to justify the termination.

In his first on-camera remarks amid burgeoning scandals engulfing his White House, President Trump denied he asked then-FBI Director James Comey to scuttle an investigation into his former national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

"No. No. Next question," Trump responded curtly to a reporter during a news conference with Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos on Thursday afternoon.

The Justice Department is appointing former FBI Director Robert Mueller as a special counsel to oversee the growing probe into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible ties to associates of President Trump.

"In my capacity as acting Attorney General, I determined that it is in the public interest for me to exercise my authority and appoint a Special Counsel to assume responsibility for this matter," Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said in a statement.

Amid several swirling crises engulfing his administration, President Trump used part of his speech Wednesday to graduates at the United States Coast Guard Academy to complain about how unfairly he was being treated by the media.

"Over the course of your life, you will find that things are not always fair. You will find that things happen to you that you do not deserve and that are not always warranted," the president told graduates of the military service academy in New London, Conn. "But you have to put your head down and fight, fight, fight."

President Trump asked then-FBI Director James Comey to close down the agency's investigation into his former national security adviser Michael Flynn just one day after Flynn was let go, according to two sources close to Comey.

The absence of former FBI Director James Comey loomed large over the Senate Intelligence Committee's hearing with top U.S. intelligence leaders, but his temporary replacement, acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe, assured lawmakers he would not bend to pressure from the White House.

"You cannot stop the men and women of the FBI from doing the right thing, protecting the American people and upholding the Constitution," McCabe said.

In response to President Trump's surprising firing Tuesday night of FBI Director James Comey, congressional Republicans largely maintained a united front and resisted calls for a special prosecutor to helm the ongoing investigation into Russia and the election.

However, cracks in that unity began to emerge in the day that followed, with key senators and some vulnerable House members voicing concern over how the White House handled Comey's dismissal.

Jim DeMint has been ousted as president of the Heritage Foundation, amid growing concerns over the direction of the influential conservative think tank.

While several news organizations had reported in recent days that his departure was imminent, Heritage's board of trustees did not mince words in a statement Tuesday confirming that the former South Carolina senator's exit came after a unanimous vote for his removal.

In her most frank remarks to date after her loss to President Trump, Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton said that if not for a controversial letter from FBI Director James Comey and Russian meddling in the election, she would be sitting in the Oval Office right now.